Was I the only one to be surprised by Apple this week announcing the arrival in the summer of yet another new version of OS X? It’s my belief OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion doesn’t represent an Apple triumph but is more damage control and preparing us for iTV.

This OS X release was not only unexpected, it’s an aberration in Apple’s relentless process of showing that it isn’t Microsoft with Redmond’s tortured OS releases. A new OS version from Apple has come every 18-24 months, yet here we are with Mountain Lion — POW! — less than a year after the launch of OS X 10.7 Lion. What gives?

For all the hype, Lion has been less than the success Apple hoped it would be. Support has been a pain in the ass for this release that still feels like beta software. Maybe Cupertino decided that a whole new release, rather than a service pack, was required.

Further, I’ve heard that customers have complained about iOS features they don’t see in Lion and wish were there.

Certainly Apple will be rolling into Mountain Lion all the cool touchscreen, digital media management, and distribution features along with hardware support for iTV and other new hardware platforms. This virtually guarantees, I guess, that the TV is on its way for Christmas 2012.

If this is the big OS X/iOS merge, what happens to those separate products? If distribution, backups, and updates are all through iCloud, maybe it doesn’t matter.

103 Comments

Grunchy
February 17, 2012 at 2:47 pm

If we are in the age of HTML 5 I wonder how much longer the operating system will persist. I can boot into an ASUS built-in browser in moments from activation, if it can run HTML 5 and if I can buy all the software I want in HTML 5 then why would I continue to care about OSX or iOS or Windows or Linux or even Android any more?
I almost cannot wait for that day, I sure hope it comes soon.

Ronc
February 17, 2012 at 3:34 pm

Although I’m not a programmer, I have been using low powered Windows computers since 1996. While it’s true that all programs could be written in HTML5, Java-script, and CSS they would not be running native code for the chip. The high level code would need to be interpreted by a browser which in turn would be running in an OS that communicates with the chip. If one were clever enough to write for the chip directly the program would be much more efficient. So with infinite processing power requiring infinitesimal electric power, efficiency would not be important. Until that day, complex programs will run better if designed for a specific chip and OS combination.

Dennis Womack
February 18, 2012 at 4:09 am

These days, things that use the JRE hot compile the Java into machine language just in time. This is automatic.

Take a look at http://www.inductiveautomation.com. Their program, Ignition, is 100% pure Java. They use Jython as the scripting language. Jython produces Java code, which hot compiles to machine language.

It runs on multiple operating systems and multiple hardware platforms.

Ronc
February 18, 2012 at 2:59 pm

Hot compiling is inherently inefficient. That’s the problem with Java in general. The most efficient code is pre-compiled into machine language before being placed on the computer.

Freddy T
February 18, 2012 at 9:29 pm

Many believe the most efficient running is to be achieved with compile-on-install. Something like .NET’s ngen facility, but compiling to machine code tailored to exactly the system the program will run on. I believe the LLVM project is experimenting with that.

There are many factors to consider as to compilation time. With a hot compile it may be more efficient for your chipset unless the programmer complied the program just for your architecture. Many compiled programs simply come in two forms and don’t take advantage of extended chip features. The JRE or the CLR can help fix this problem, or if you have a few days to burn you can just install Gentoo. Also if someone is compiling the program but they’re not using compilation optimization, then there are many cases where C is beaten by Java. When I used the gcc -O2 then the C code beat it.

Ms. Lovelace
February 28, 2012 at 2:17 pm

Cordially, you do not know what you are talking about. Static optimization will never beat dynamic (runtime) optimization. Look at JVM, running all that overhead of a very tight runtime for an object system and duing JIT compilation and keeping very close to denuded systems — i.e watch that memory location, !Ada — written in C/C++.

Ronc
February 28, 2012 at 4:29 pm

@Lovelace. Admittedly, my experience is limited. But I have used an expensive Java conferencing program on both slow (Window Experience Index of 2.5) and fast (WEI=5+) computers and it was useless on the slow one which is my main computer and which works fine for all my needs. Skype worked much better. Due to the security issues, lack of a need for it, and general poor performance on an otherwise fine computer, I don’t even bother to install Java anymore. If it were so great more people would install it, instead of being told not to due to the security issues and the need for constant updates.

Java compiles to java byte code — not ‘machine’ code. This means you still have a run-time engine in between.

For most applications this is probably sufficient.

For real/near-real time applications (MMORPGs, FPSs, Flight Simulations etc) that isn’t good enough IMHO. In those applications – you need high performance all around; in rendering, network communications, and I/O.

In a competitive environment – those who can get that performance edge will beat the competition. The dream of ignoring low level considerations is a panacea. Not learning enough about low level systems programming is at your own risk (I can’t tell you how many times I have found bugs that were serious impediments to system performance [in command line data processing apps even mind you] – which could have been avoided had the person building the system understood what their libraries/frameworks were doing at the system level).

Is there anyone under the age of 40 who understands this anymore?

R
February 19, 2012 at 9:53 pm

You clearly haven’t kept up with technology, then. You see, back in the 1990’s, Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation started to become widespread in VMs.

The Hotspot VM used in modern Java selectively compiles the Java bytecode into native code. So, hot sections of code often run fast.

Some of the leaders of Hotspot went on to develop the Crankshaft VM for v8, the JavaScript interpreter for Chrome. It also compiles JavaScript into native code.

There are many tasks where this does not give sufficient performance. But usually, this is a question of optimization, and it’s rare for a random programmer to be better at optimization than a modern compiler.

Ronc
February 20, 2012 at 4:00 pm

@R…We may be getting off the subject a bit. Someone originally suggested that “modern” programming tools will eliminate the need for concern about an OS. But efficiency means we want the chip to just operate on new data with as few clock cycles as possible. The only way to do that is to compile the code for whatever chip is being used prior to putting it on the computer/device. Since each chip works best with an OS designed for it, you need to design to the OS. JIT still uses the clock cycles of the device running the program and is inherently less efficient.

As one who has been less than a fan of Micro$oft since Win95, this is not a defense of Win7.

But The Googlechrome scheme is a big ho-hum, leaving me with the question, “why?”

Charlie
February 17, 2012 at 10:59 pm

A lot of corporations rely on programs that are not and probably never will be browser based.

Corporations are the bread and butter of Microsoft profitability.

Commercial Madness Again!
February 18, 2012 at 12:30 am

Why rewrite and force users to re-buy applications they already have that do what they want already? That only makes sense to greedy commercial types and accountants. The computing world continues to be contorted by the deranged needs of a broken commercial system!

Roody15
February 27, 2012 at 10:16 am

Well said.

bojennett
February 18, 2012 at 5:27 pm

Grunchy, you will never be able to buy all the software you want in HTML5. Because it won’t happen. HTML5 sucks…. period. It isn’t even as good as the Java that came before it, and even *that* couldn’t come close to succeeding everywhere. The last hold out to even use Java (Android) only uses it as a programming language. The first time you load something up on Android, it gets recompiled to native code and is native from then on out.

God, I’m so sick of this HTML5 crap. We’re supposed to jump up with joy that Google used an HTML5 feature to allow you to drag and drop a file into a gmail web browser? Something that existed in Windows in the late 80s and the Mac in the mid-80’s? Are you kidding me?

I want there to be a derivative market for HTML5 companies, so that I can bet against that market. I would make a fortune.

SharpDog
February 21, 2012 at 4:17 am

As a software developer over the last 30+ years I can tell you that the “Next New Technology” does not solve the fundamental problem of managing complexity. This manifests itself in software defects, bugs, which result from the trade off between the time / resources we can and will spend to produce / test a software product vs. the resulting quality delivered in a desirable time frame. HTML5 in a browser with no (apparent to the user) operating system will suffer the same sorts of limitations of all of those operating systems you mention when the complexity of the software rises to a similar level. ie. Running a fully MS Office-equivalent piece of software developed with a similar level of time / resources of MS office will be of similar quality on Windows, OSX or HTML5 in a browser.

Gary
February 17, 2012 at 2:52 pm

I had just assumed that the preview related to signed apps. Developers need time to get on board, and there is no way to keep it secret once they tell all the developers, so don’t try.

Michael
February 17, 2012 at 4:01 pm

It just sounds like good business: slog customers $40 every time you release a service pack that Microsoft would give away free.

Oops, typo’ed. Originally typed $29 each for the Mac OS updates, adding up to $87. Missed updating that to $90 when I rounded the prices of the updates up to $30.

Jarom
February 25, 2012 at 9:59 am

Apple already soaked you on the hardware side. Their “cheaper” software updates are a loss leader to flog a greater number of the shiny. The cost of their updates is meant to drive hardware side sales, or perhaps partially/fully offset software development costs, no more.

It’s interesting to me that people trying to make a point will knowingly fabricate information to enhances their viewpoint. Not to pick on Michael #1 personally, this is a recurring theme in the world of blog comments.

Do you think I am going to agree with you? How does your behavior advance your position? I really don’t get it. And it must be me. Some blogs have likes/thumbs up/thumbs down buttons. It seems the people with the outlandish statements have the most thumbs up. I just dont get it.

David Mac
February 17, 2012 at 5:08 pm

Hmmm, sounds to me like Bob’s upset he wasn’t one of the chosen journalists to review Mountain Lion…

Dave
February 17, 2012 at 5:09 pm

No Bob, not damage control. Just their newer release cycle and continued merger of iOS and OS X apps/features.

Lion actually works great. There are few complainers (mainly because the old emulator was removed) but it really does work well.

Unlike Microsoft, Apple continues to move forward by adding features and de-supporting older technologies. That doesn’t always make people happy, but it’s a heck of a business model.

gjs
February 18, 2012 at 4:16 pm

Anecdotal: Seems like many people didn’t even make the move to Lion as its raison d’etre was starting the iOS merge rather than introducing new or needed OS improvements.

And that’s even with the first-sample-is-free marketing trick of selling it for $29.

pk de cville
February 17, 2012 at 5:11 pm

Seems Obvious, Doesn’t it?

M Lion is Opportunistic:

– Get OSX more entwined with iOS.

(Have you heard iOS shipped more devices this year than OSX shipped in 21 years?)

– Implement AirPlay. Ship more performant Retina Apple TV 3.

– Ship Apple Retina iTV and invite the rest of the industry to license/certify specs on the display and AirPlay interface.

A “service pack” doesn’t include totally new applications. And because there are new apps (to the Mac) Apple can’t give those away for free. Just like they had to charge a $1 for FaceTime on Snow Leopard.

An why buy an “iTV” when you can just turn your TV into a Mac!!?

I think all of these TV rumors were people catching some bits of AirPlay Mirroring and assuming it was a full fledged TV.

Bob use your head here.

George
February 25, 2012 at 4:27 pm

Let’s all use our heads. TVs make lousy computers, unless all you do with a computer is use it as a TV. Turning the computer into a more expensive idiot box is not my idea of progress.

Hill Tiger
February 17, 2012 at 6:13 pm

Let’s face it, Lion was a turd, maybe Apple is starting to follow Microsoft’s “turd-jewel” cycle. God damnit, Vista sucked the big one; Windows 7 is rock solid and snappy. Which of course means they’re going to screw the pooch on Windows 8. There’s just too much history to deny it.

The “record number of people who bought a Mac last quarter” didn’t buy it because of Lion. Most of them never owned a Mac before and had nothing to compare Lion to. Others had to buy a new Mac because their old one wore out, or because they needed some new software that wouldn’t run on it. How many people bought a new Mac in a way that showed they preferred Lion to Snow Leopard? I’d guess almost none.

“The ‘record number of people who bought a Mac last quarter’ didn’t buy it because of Lion.”

Do you have data to back that up? No, of course you don’t.

“Most of them never owned a Mac before and had nothing to compare Lion to.”

Nothing? Like MS Windows is nothing? BTW, Apple frequently likes to make note of the fat that about 50% of Mac purchases are to people who are new to the Mac. So that other 50% who have been using Macs already had a pretty good idea of what they were getting.

“How many people bought a new Mac in a way that showed they preferred Lion to Snow Leopard? I’d guess almost none.”

You can guess, and I can guess, but neither of us have any facts about it to base an argument on. So that guess of yours is merely speculation.

Turn it around: How many people DIDN’T buy a new Mac because they didn’t want Lion? We don’t have any statistical data about that, either. The data we DO have, though, is that Apple has been selling record numbers of Macs since Lion came out, and that about 50% of those are being sold to people who have used Macs before.

In contrast, did Microsoft sell record numbers of Windows Vista after it came out? No. Was derision of it nearly universal; across the press, public, IT managers, etc.? Yes. The press stories about all this are out there. Did huge numbers of people stick with XP on older computers and wait to upgrade their OS or get a new computer until Windows 7? Yes. These statistics are also out there.

Was there similar universal derision and delayed computer upgrades with Mac OS Lion? No. Instead there was a record number of sales of new Macs with Lion pre-installed.

A small minority of users have issues with Lion, and they’re simply very vocal. The same thing happened with Snow Leopard, the same thing happened with Leopard, and the same thing will probably happen with Mountain Lion. That’s life in the tech lane.

This is the first time since OS X arrived on the scene that it was widely compared to Vista.

cmoore
February 18, 2012 at 12:29 pm

Im afraid I missed Apple saying that lion was going to be the 1st in 12 month cycles.
I understand that may have been part of a presentation last year when the Apple App store got rolled out, Ill have to check into that one.

So is that a good idea ? Maybe and I understand it kinda looks like charging for service packs… kinda. Damage control? Very likely but there is a good deal of marketing involved where future products are concerned, particularly at this very crucial time. Also make no mistake about it Lion marks Apple move into the most consumer concentric OS in their history. By that I mean consumer vs. professional.
Most of … well pretty much all of the video pro’s I know did not make the move to Lion. Perhaps this year … hard to say.

Im sure the 10.8 seems polished, it should, they have had longer to work on it and part if it has already been running on the iOS. So sure NP.

Acowymous Nonherd
February 20, 2012 at 9:52 am

I have no idea what the record number of MB Lion buyers wanted, but I can tell you that _this_ one wants his old OS back.

I bought an MBP last year, with 10.6 on it. I was happy. Late in the year, I got a new MBP from an employer, with 10.7. These are the same hardware; the difference is the OS only.

The new environment is substantially slower. Safari regularly goes completely bonkers and takes over half the resources on the machine. The versioning filesystem interface has lousy support for branching, which means that I have to completely relearn the workflow I have followed since the days when Commodore was popular and IBM hadn’t learned to spell PC yet. Oh, and also it has the most expensive “undo” interface ever invented in computing history: all that graphic power just so I can go back a version — something I don’t want to take a million years when I’m trying to find work I’ve done. LauchPad and Mission Control are, to me, poor half-witted attempts to make the laptop more like Apple-iOS (“IOS” is still a router OS to me); similarly with the stupid change of behaviour of the track pad. All of these are an indication that Apple has failed to appreciate the very thing that once made it a company to be emulated: the way the design of the parts fit the task and the environment was part of what made MacOS and Apple-iOS seem advanced compared to the foolish baubles that seemed to litter the MS systems, or the random widget of the day that was the lot of people using X with any UNIX flavour.

Rumour has it that the Apple-iOS kids are the cool ones in Cupertino, so that’s where the smart people have all moved. The 2d raters are apparently still stuck on MacOS. This would explain why MacOS seems increasingly like a bad, 2d rate copy of Apple-iOS. I don’t care why they’re going to 12 month release cycles; but if Lion is the sign of what the future will be with Apple, I think they should plan for the next release to be called (jumped the) Shark.

I for one hope we do NOT see Macs with touch screens. Steve Jobs made it abundantly clear that a touch screen works fine when something is in your lap but not a vertical screen in front of you. That’s just gimmicky and not at all practical. Your arm gets tired pretty fast holding it straight out in front of you.

The mouse and the trackpad, OTOH, work quite well. If Apple adds a touch screen, that will be the first sign that the company has lost its way.

seth
February 20, 2012 at 10:49 am

You’re underlying assumption is they would simply add a touch layer on top of the existing macbook/imac display.

I’d love to have a lap-desk sized ‘iPad’ that runs full blown OSX apps.

GaranceD
February 17, 2012 at 7:54 pm

FWIW, I was surprised by the announcement of Mountain Lion at this time. I didn’t expect to hear anything about a new MacOS until WWDC at the earliest.

But I don’t see any reason to think this is “damage control”. I think they just want to do more to hook up MacOS into iCloud, and to introduce the Gatekeeper stuff. I suspect that Apple realizes that as it gets more Mac users, it will attract more attention from people who write evil software. And (my claim is) they want to get ahead of that.

Also, Gamecenter and the new Notification support in iOS are pretty popular, so it makes sense that they’d want to bring those to MacOS. And I think they want to get Gatekeeper, Gamecenter, new Notifications, and more iCloud to Mac users before Windows8 has been around for long. Mountain Lion does seem a little “thin” to call it a whole new OS release, but there’s enough there that they wouldn’t want to release them as a bunch of separate bits and pieces. (IMO)

I’ll admit that I was happier with longer periods between major OS releases, but I don’t think Mountain Lion has been rushed into release because Apple is worried about how popular Lion is.

Eric B
February 17, 2012 at 8:04 pm

I think that 10.8 along with 10.7 dropping support for Core Duo processors was a HUGE mistake. Pretty much every school district out there can’t run out and replace hundreds to thousands of machines right now. Budgets have been slashed, income is down for private schools and those machines work just great on 10.6. All of this iOS merging is total BS for those of us who have to manage these machines. I’ll never stop using a Mac but I’m beginning to dislike their OS strategy.

I also dislike how they seem to be abandoning education. They really need to help out 3rd party developers who are still distributing OLD software, HMH and others included. I still get discs with Mac OS 9 software on them in BRAND NEW TEXTBOOKS! Most of the testing software that my teachers use was meant for PPC 10.4 machines and with the latest fiasco with the 2012-001 v1.0 patch breaking rosetta I’ve just about had it with education software. I expect Apple to get their crap right THE FIRST TIME, it feels like I’ve become a Microsoft user.

Microsoft have always gotten themselves into a lot of trouble because of their legacy support, but at least it takes a long time before they actually leave you behind.

It seems very cynical and arrogant to just leave such a huge and loyal user base behind. It’ll be interesting to see what the consequences will be. A very expensive hardware upgrade or perhaps a move to Linux or Win 7/8?

MuppetGate
February 17, 2012 at 9:01 pm

Abandoning education?

So you didn’t hear about the whole ‘replacing textbooks with iPads’ thing then.

Eric B
February 18, 2012 at 5:25 am

@MuppetGate So you didn’t see that only EIGHT textbooks actually exist and to equip say 2000 students would only cost around $1M PLUS $240,000 a year just in book maintenance. I know we don’t have that kind of cash, and cash strapped public schools that have been laying off teachers don’t have that kind of cash either.

The reviews of these “textbooks” on iPad have been less than kind, more like a slightly beefed up PDF. It’s going to easily take 5+ years for it to gain any traction nationwide.

Cris E
February 24, 2012 at 10:37 am

iBooks is a move towards making more money, not serving the interests of schools. it costs a ton to create, it locks content onto the Apple platform, and it forces sales thru the iTunes world where they collect a very healthy cut. The school I volunteer at can’t afford that.

And the larger point of abandoning education is very true. The old white Macbooks are gone and now the “low end” laptop is an Air. AELP charges schools for apps and OS every year rather than going with the one-time cost that worked for ages. Abandoning older (not old, just older) hardware at a time when there’s less and less budget puts schools in a real bind. Moving the bulk of their app sales and distribution to iTunes makes things very hard to manage. They resist flash when a lot of educational publishers would prefer to use it for its cost and simplicity. They killed their server line. The list goes on. It’s not all specifically anti-education, but schools are getting clobbered.

Several trends have pushed them to this. First, most software is appearing on the web so the browser is the computer in many cases, and that means there’s less and less justification for the huge premium Apple charges for its gear. Next, Win 7 is a very good OS, and over time the vast gulf between Apple and other GUIs has closed considerably, and the further move towards netbooks and tablets has made the cost proposition even harder. As schools start moving away from Macbooks towards Windows and iPads I think Apple has simply made the cash grab while they can, figuring a district that can’t afford it was probably going to cut and run anyway.

In the past few years there have been countless examples of Apple turning away from computers and towards personal electronics supported by the cloud. They dropped servers, they’re narrowing the laptop lines, they’re moving the OS towards the iOS, they’re not attaching the ipad to anything but their online store (ie no USB), the later OS versions are pushing towards the store and away from third party apps, there are fewer and fewer ways to customize the platform so that schools can’t control the online experience how they need to, and on and on. Steve’s walled garden might be more profitable, but it’s expensive to live there and is not serving the needs of education.

” I still get discs with Mac OS 9 software on them in BRAND NEW TEXTBOOKS!”

Pfft. And who’s fault is that?

Eric B
February 18, 2012 at 5:31 am

@Michael A. Robson clearly you don’t buy text books. THESE ARE THE ABSOLUTE NEWEST EDITIONS OF TEXTBOOKS FROM THE PUBLISHERS. These fat lazy publishers have no incentive to update their software. We buy from Pearson, HMH and others and they all distribute old crappy software that the developed over a decade ago.

As far as products software “Kid Pix” goes, I think that crap gorks our screens down to 800×600! That’s a turn of the century screen resolution. It’s all magnified and blocky. It the same for windows too. Education software is the pits.

Eric B
February 18, 2012 at 5:33 am

Sorry, I wrote that too fast and too early in the morning, lots of errors. Need caffeine.

DDR
February 19, 2012 at 10:31 pm

I worked for one of the worst offenders. In one case they actually sliced up old filmstrips, scanned them, and put them out as CD-ROM’s. Utter crap. But they made millions because the purchasing was made by central office personnel working from a catalog description. The people who had to use this stuff had no say in the matter.
In fact, the products often didn’t exist except as a catalog entry. If they got a certain number of orders they’d quick slap together a disk and ship it.

iTunes on Windows was great so I eventually bought an iPod. And then several iPods. Still using my iPod classic – best gadget ever.

Halo effect, so I bought the first MacBook Air. Ok, I couldn’t actually get Netflix to stream on it so I never bothered to upgrade the OS. And now the Kindle app no longer runs on my previously obsolete configuration. I think this means I’m three OS upgrades behind.

Company bought me an iPhone. Works. Good device. Unfortunately, iTunes for Windows no longer recognizes it so I can’t sync via cable or via wireless. Also, iTunes is total bloatware and iTunes Match is meh so I switched to MediaMonkey for my beloved Classic.

Couldn’t justify paying $$$ for an iPad so I bought a Kindle Fire. Works great for books and Netflix and it nicely slips into my jacket pocket. Well, when I can get it out of my daughter’s hand.

I for one have been very happy with Lion. Love the new gesture controls on our macbook. I have yet to hear of massive user complaints about Lion and seeing people state as a fact that it was a “turd” is surprising and frankly smells of righteous BS. As someone else pointed out, there is always is some one who isn’t happy when the vast majority are. Bob, your wrong on this being damaged control as others have pointed out. Apple is speeding things up again as they did ten 12 years ago when OS X was new. Smells more of competition that damage control if you ask me. Some of these changes (if they were damage control) are fixing errors in design such as Notes in Mail and to do list in iCal which were silly to begin with and those go back to at least Leopard.

pjs_boston
February 18, 2012 at 3:26 am

OS X v10.8 is not damage control. It is part of a multiyear strategy to harmonize iOS and OS X at the user experience level. Unlike Microsoft, Apple has eschewed the one UI fits all approach in favor of a consistent underlying architecture exposed through a set of UI’s that are optimized for the device of choice.

I’ve been using Mountain Lion for the last day and I might agree with your premise has OS 10.8 seemed rushed or unpolished. On the contrary, it is seamless and polished to the typical Apple shine, even in pre-beta.

Brendan
February 18, 2012 at 3:35 am

The influence of iOS on the Mac OSX has a lot to do with the number of customers, but the numbers are not the only factor. What Apple likes most about iOS is that by acting as gatekeeper they can take a cut on the sales of apps that run on it. They must be considering doing the same for OSX and that means at least a partial merging of the two operating systems. Even Microsoft is planning to do that with Metro.

WRFink
February 18, 2012 at 5:15 am

I suspect this may be preemptive moves to spoil any Windows 8 ARM announcements later this year.

Boudica
February 18, 2012 at 6:18 am

Bob – I think its time to make Prediction 8 become a reality. Although you stated “I’m not saying exactly when the end will come, just that it will be this year sometime after September,” I’m thinking sometime before March would allow you to transition into Emeritus status before you undermine your 25 years prior work.

I think Bob could hold out a lot longer if he just stops saying ANYTHING about Apple.

His Apple posts usually get a lot of comments and page views, but he’s been consistently *wrong* *every* *time* about them for the past who-knows-HOW-long. For example, Bob’s yearly predictions about Apple have ALL been wrong for at least the past three years.

Would anyone care to scan back through Bob’s past posts to find the last time he’s actually been CORRECT in the main point in a post he’s made about Apple? (Make sure you’ve got the time to spend, it’ll take a while.)

tmay
February 18, 2012 at 8:15 am

Presumably, all that hiring and facility expansion in Cupertino and nearby communities by Apple would help to explain where all the resources to make this happen came from. It’s not like there isn’t some kind of cash hoard available to pay for it.

Annual updates is the new paradigm for OS X and aligns releases with yearly updates of iOS. Seems pragmatic.

Nigel
February 18, 2012 at 10:40 am

So whose hand is on the tiller we might ask? Making questionable decisions?

I always thought that Lion was good on an Intel i5 (slow on an i3) and featured a lot of half-baked iOS features that were a pain, to be frank. The features I did like made it feel, at least, like an upgrade to Snow Leopard. Not sure what a roll-out of full iOs compatibility will be like on a desktop as I still feel (luddite as I may seem) that the two platforms should be different.

My regret is that internet TV is (quite bluntly) bloomin’ expensive in the UK if you pay for ADSL. And that, having been said, means Apple TV in any form doesn’t appeal to me – yet!

Old people moaning how the times are changing…
Lion was a step into the right direction. With the full integration of iCloud in 10.8 and a similar release cycle as iOS, the two forks will better match each other.
I use MacOS 8.6 under 10.8 with SheepShaver, “program” in HyperCard and use MacWrite Pro, cool! And a nice backwards compatibility.
But I look forward the tight integration of all my modern devices and to use my Mac more when he matches the speed and elegance of my iDevices in daily tasks.

DavidW
February 18, 2012 at 2:29 pm

Those “hundred new features” include a lot of items that can be considered marginal at best, absurd on contemplation. If you read Macintouch, there’s no end of complaining about iOS-y clutter that’s more for the entertainment side of computing, rather than work or personal creation. Who needs a scroll bar that disappears when you move the mouse off it? Who needs a calendar or an address book that emulate the iPad’s and appear to punish the user who dares to use a mouse instead of a fingertip? And why do these applications, from a company that used to sweat the details of design, arrive tricked out to look like an insurance-company’s leatherette giveaway that you’d immediately toss in the bin?

The worst part of Lion is it continues Apple’s abandonment of its Human Interface Guidelines. It used to be that you could sit down with a new app and be able to perform basic tasks in minutes, because core activities were standardized. Now every new tool you use is utterly individual, particularly if it is from Apple itself.

It really is a shame, but Lion is less an operating system than a terrible sign of how thoroughly Apple has veered from the values that once made it great.

bojennett
February 18, 2012 at 6:14 pm

So, when they went from 10.0 to 10.1, and gave it away for free because 10.0 was such a mess, that was a sign of the “good times”?

People have such selective memories…

TheOtherGeoff
February 19, 2012 at 11:09 am

Bing. Mac OS X damage control has occurred in the past.

This is not it, however. It, if anything, is next phase in the ‘grand plan’

Personally, I see the alignment of the Mac|i OS [X] ecosystems as the key deliverables.
– always on
– always saved
– always backed up
– all my apps delivered from the app store
– all my apps signed by someone who Apple vets for me.

The personal computer becomes truly personal (in use). I’m arguing in another thread that the ‘password’ will go away… and the ‘token’ will be the identification std in the future… and that ‘token’ will a signed cert on your device(s). The concept of ‘public’ computers (workplace computers, internet cafe computers, library kiosks) will go away… we will plug ‘our’ computer onto various networks. If you don’t have ‘your computer.’

I see vestiges of Project Athena leaking through this model. What is HTML5 but a new flavor of XWindows?

And that data center in North Carolina… one great big stateful Access Management system. iCloud is really about ‘retaining state’ of personal computing.

Since Apple is leading the way in highly mobile devices (iPhone, iPad, MBAir), it would make sense they see the world as a place as everyone on the planet having at least one, if not all 3, device modalities. Hence they want to blur those lines down to effectively just what SW distribution the platform uses. Otherwise, the experiences are aligned (not the same… this is not ‘Windows Everywhere’)

As iOS has verified this is what _consumers_ (not nerds) want in computers. And consumers drive the desktop in corps (contrary to what people may think…. no IT department foisted PC’s on their former 3270 or punch card users because it was an IT edict). No Director of email services drove the adoption of BlackBerries.

So, in the next phase of the game… moving the Apple ‘i’ experience from the pocket to the living room to the board room to the break room, to cube farm is the method of making Apple as ubiquitous to end user computing as Cisco is to Internetworking.

Mountain Lion is just that… a further step away from Mac OS X as a ‘mainframe on your desk’ (or whatever the original NeXT slogan was), to ‘always on personal computing.’ Hardly damage control, but another step in the evolution towards something we all saw in the 70’s and 80s.

Can’t disagree with you more here, Bob. Lion is great (more on that later). And, Lion has been Apple’s best selling OS. That’s just a fact. As for why this is coming out less than a year of the last as opposed to 18-24 months, well, that’s also simple. Cook explained that. A new version of iOS comes out every year, OSX and iOS are sharing lots of code now, so why not do an OSX every year.

And you can’t look at OSX in the same light as, say, Windows. They are different beasts. Microsoft creates one OS every 5-7 years and charges $130 or whatever. Apple brings out one every year to 2 years and charges $30. In the end, same amount of money is made, and the feature changes in a 5 year time span are quite huge. Look at XP vs., say, Windows 7, and then look as OSX 10.0 vs. 10.6. Quite huge changes.

The difference is, you get incremental sweet changes with Apple, as opposed to waiting an eternity for something that you might end up hating. Much prefer the Apple way, and Microsoft seems to be moving in the Apple direction here with scheduled releases.

As for why Lion is great? I have found it to be more stable, take up fewer resource, and give me longer battery life. Not an astounding difference from Snow Leopard, but when I go back to a SL machine I feel antiquated. What are these big blue bars? Oh, yeah, the scroll bar… feels like wasted screen real estate compared to how Lion does things.

Under the hood, things are just smoother. Apps launch faster. When they launch, all my old documents are there. It suspends and resumes faster compared to SL, which was already several orders of magnitude faster than Windows. And that’s where OSX is really changing… the under the hood things.

And for Pete’s sake, Lion was only $29. Anybody upset that 10.8 (probably another $29) is coming out too quickly on the heels of a $29 update needs to have their head examined, or at least put the hash tag #firstworldproblems on the end of their complaint.

David W.
February 18, 2012 at 6:37 pm

> If we are in the age of HTML 5 I wonder how much longer the operating
> system will persist.

The people have spoken. Originally, no third party apps were suppose to be on iPhones. Jobs even stated that HTML 5/Java Script was the way to go. However, the hoi polloi said “no”, and Apple relented.

Considering how important iPad and iPhone apps have become, it appears that we’re still not in the era of HTML based apps.

Apple might have it right: The front end is a GUI that takes advantage of all the operating system abilities while the back end is a bunch of HTML APIs. The advantage of this mix is that it’s not all that difficult to support multiple platforms. Writing an app for the iPhone and another for Android is much, much easier than writing an application for the Mac and another one for Windows.

Ronc
February 19, 2012 at 3:38 pm

What’s easier for the developer is harder on the device. See the comments following the one you quoted.

David W.
February 18, 2012 at 6:47 pm

If 10.8 is anything more than a mere os update, it’s a show of how Apple is changing and evolving now that the Steve Jobs Era is over. If you read all the various accounts, you’ll see one thing over and over again: This is very different from the past.

Apple showed private demos of Mountain Lion to bloggers, Apple reporters, developers, resellers, and the entire Apple spectrum. They also handed out demos (and even demo machines) to non-developers. Tim Cook was present at many of these meetings — meeting one-on-one with various people and answering their questions.

And, if you look at the responses from various people, you’ll see how thrilled they are that Apple now seems to be listening to their issues and is a bit more open about where things are going. Many were surprised that Gatekeeper will allow developers to still distribute applications outside of the Mac App Store, and Apple’s reassurances that they have no plans to cutoff third party distribution.

In the coming months we’ll see more changes in policy on the iOS platform including a loosening of controls.

melangell
February 18, 2012 at 9:38 pm

Seriously??? Apple is hitting on all cylinders…. Microsoft???? Losers.

AlbertW
February 19, 2012 at 6:23 am

I have always been suspicious of OS upgrades. I have too many pieces of existing software that inevitably, something will not work on the new OS and I have to go waste time finding the replacement software that will work with the new OS. That’s why I hold out as long as possible: to get a read on the new OS.

The worst time I ever had was (I don’t have the date or HW/SW) when I kept holding out until the revised email SW would not work on the old OS, and I of necessity upgraded the OS. With that, the best CD copying package I ever had became unusable. The old driver for the external CD read/writer did not work with the new OS and the old external CD device was not longer supported by the manufacturer. Net result: I had a system that worked that has never been replaced with anything as useful as that old setup I had. I think they have copyright measures on the newer copy SW. CD burning has always been a pain compared to floppy use and now USB memory stick use. One of my main uses was to take my bought music CDs and burn them for use in my cars, to protect the original from heat, wear, and other damage. It was easy to use the 2 drive copy method. I’m lost now because workable replacements don’t seem to exist.

‘Nother subject: What I want is a computer pad. Some recent HP and Toshibas with an MS OS are sort of models for what I want. The screens twist and flip to a pad mode, with touch screen OS interface. Unfortunately the HP product, at least, was flaky, no battery life, hot on the lap, and other awkward user interfaces. But at least it showed the promise. I’d like Apple to make one with their usual attention to detail. The mechanicals today would consist of a twist and flip display screen like the HP and Toshiba, or maybe a flip backwards flip screen to make the pad interface, disabling the keyboard that would then be on the bottom. I’d like it to to be much like the MacBook Air, which means light, no optical disc support, and for me I’d like about 13/15″ and with 512 GB memory which would meet my desires. And what with the high price of bandwidth from phone-based services, I do not want to be a slave to the Cloud for most of my usage. That’s why I would be willing to pay for the larger memory than I can get from the Air today.

I fond Lion’s performance to be poor, very slow login and abandoning backward compatibility has caused me some grief. The new features have not been useful to me and I ended up turning most of them off.

shoreline view
February 20, 2012 at 7:46 am

Lion has taken my 2011 Sandy Bridge Macbook Pro and massacred the battery life while making the computer run hot, all for no apparent gain in performance and a series of annoying little tweaks in the user interface. I’m honestly completely fed up with it, and seriously considering the major hassle of retro-grading (I refuse to call it downgrading) to Snow Leopard.

James
February 21, 2012 at 6:04 am

As it should… 2007 era Mac Mini’s? Were you seriously surprised that an OS released years later would cause them to barely function? How can you expect 4-5 year old hardware to run the latest OS?

Ronc
February 21, 2012 at 1:19 pm

Most new systems that came out in that time were running Vista. They all work better with the latest version of Windows 7 and all Windows 7 systems are expected to work just as well with Windows 8. Of course over the past 20 years, software has gotten more complex, requiring better hardware. However, in recent years hardware growth has slowed, so at least Microsoft has tried to compensate by reversing the “more complex hardware required” trend. Apple compensated by making an entirely new class of hardware devices. The Windows on Arm part (called WinRT) of Windows 8 will be Microsoft’s attempt to add these devices to the Windows camp while maintaining compatibility with existing and new Intel (x86 and x64) systems: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_8 .

Larry
February 21, 2012 at 1:44 pm

I’m with Bob on this one. Lion is a mess. I have two personal machines running Lion because they won’t run older, and boy do I miss Snow Leopard. Sure, Apple is always dumping the legacy stuff; that’s why they can move forward faster than Microsoft. I could still run Claris Home Page on Windows 7. How long has it been since that worked on the Mac? But up until Lion, it always felt like progress. Now I feel like Apple is pouring all of its creative energy into iOS and the MacOS is just getting the leftovers. And Mountain Lion promises even more dumbed down iOS stuff for the Mac. This lack of vision on the Mac side seems to coincide with the removal of “Computer” from the company name, and the re-alignment of the products towards consumers rather than scientists, creative professionals, educators, etc. I kind of miss the old Apple, back before they got too cool for school!

Malcolm Brown
February 21, 2012 at 1:47 pm

I too feel that this sudden release of Mountain Lion damage control.

I hate to say this, but nevertheless the thought crosses my mind: would Steve have let this happen? After all, Jobs fired the VP in charge of MobileMe when it first came out, because that initial release of MobileMe was such a muddle.

Tangurena
February 21, 2012 at 1:53 pm

>If this is the big OS X/iOS merge, what happens to those separate products? If distribution, backups, and updates are all through iCloud, maybe it doesn’t matter.

With the gradual elimination of DVD drives, updates are almost certainly going to be through iCloud or the App Store. For iOS, this won’t be a problem. For corporate desktop use, this is a deal breaker. I predict that we’ll see the end of independant developers for Mac with the requirement that all code needs to be signed and distributed through the App Store.

My mini hasn’t been upgraded to Lion yet because 2 of the applications I use still have PPC code in them. Sure, one of them (Spaceward Ho) is an ancient game from the begining of time (ok, the 90s), but I like that game, and after contacting the developer, he’s not going to be porting it or making Intel binaries, so Lion stays off.

If I wanted an iPad, I understand they are available for purchase for a lot less than the new MacBook Pro I just bought.

This is the first Apple OS that has me really thinking about alternatives.

Kim
February 24, 2012 at 1:17 am

I’ve taken the time to read all the comments and the most accurate thing I’ve read is “Let’s face it, Lion was a turd”.

I tried it, it was horrible. After 22 days of trying to like it I rolled back to Snow Leopard. I’m a happy Mac user again. If Lion is an indication of where Mac OS is going, they’ll be losing a long time user/developer.

so let me get this straight…. Right after announcing quarterly figures that blow all other companies out the water, Apple announce the latest version of their copied but never bettered os which leaves most commentators and analysts caught with their pants down unaware that anything was even in development.

This release is supposdly ‘damage control’ to an untried os from a company that has become incresingly irrelevent in the last three years…

the article nicely encapsulates the art of only seeing what you want to see…

[…] Into this august association flies Robert X. Cringely who thinks “OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is repairs control.” […]

CPM Support Engineer
March 8, 2012 at 11:48 pm

Lion was (buggy, IMHO) a pre-release of Mountain Lion primarly to satisfy Wall Streets need to see Apple remain on their previous release schedule. Perhaps the decreasing involvement of Steve during the last portion of his life left some teams floating before they developed the confidence to act without his approval of every detail. In any case I have personally experienced each of the weaknesses of Apple (OS3?) and look forward to Mountain Lion as a genuine release of the current OS in it’s final form.

DZ
March 15, 2012 at 7:37 am

A month in and there are only four responses to this post–and two of them are “trackback” pings.

I guess this shows the state of affairs of Mr. Cringely’s column. After reading the post I can see why.

Whatever happened to the old Robert X. Cringely, who while occasionally wrong, still provided insightful ideas within the domain of the reasonable and probable.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

-dZ.

Ronc
March 15, 2012 at 2:58 pm

There are about 112 comments. You were looking at the 2nd page.

Ed Franks
March 27, 2012 at 3:23 pm

What is Apple going to use for OS version names when they run out of big cats? I guess they will have to use names of the lesser ones… like serval… caracal… margey.. and well.. HOUSE CAT. sheesh. Why not just call it what it is: FreeBSD

As a less than enthusiastic computer user, I don’t keep up with the correspondence between OS numbers and OS names. I see on my computer the OS number, and I see on ads and recommendations, names. I wish the Apple company would simply place in the “About this Mac” information window the OS number 10.6.8 and next to it in parentheses the name (Mountain Lion), or whatever is the right name. All I see on these comments is names that mean nothing to me unless I get a decoder ring.

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